brighter than sunshine
by Blake0Tyler
Summary: You see, she's not exceptionally pretty. Lavender Brown/ Seamus Finnegan


**A/N: I wrote this b****ecause I'm quite in love with this pairing and your reviews on "spinning, twirling, flying" made me enjoy writing them even more. For those of you wondering, the proper sequel to that story is on its way. But first, this one. It was partly written because Lavender seems like the type of girl with these kind of insecurities. Also, I think we all know what it's like to feel not good enough sometimes, and I figured that in particular beauty would be a major issue for Lavender, especially after the whole Greyback incident. But I guess it's those things that make us **_**real **_**in the end, so here we go. If you like this story enough to favorite I would be absolutely thrilled, but please leave a review if you do so! Also, if you have favorite sentences or things you particularly liked in this story, please tell me. Enjoy! – Lauren**

**Disclaimer: Disclaimed.**

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"_Let the rain fall, I don't care." _

_- Brighter than sunshine – Aqualung – _

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(2427 words of insecurity)

**I.**

You see, she's not exceptionally pretty.

**II.**

She watches her mum, standing in front of the mirror in the hall way of their house, dressed in a _stunning _black dress, blonde hair all long and curly and shining, with her beautiful white smile and her gorgeous green eyes and _gosh_, she's wearing hardly any make-up but doesn't she shine like the brightest star in the universe?

The two of them are standing right next to each other and Lavender slightly frowns, because next to her mother she's just a tiny ten year old, with skinned knees and plain blue eyes and a basic haircut. And there's nothing _exceptional _about her.

The bell rings and her mother pushes her aside, away from the mirror, muttering: "Have you been playing at that playground again? You're a mess!" But then she softly smiles, "Please go to your room now. Nanny Grace will take care of you."

She pats her on the head as some sort of goodbye, and Lavender runs up the stairs, turning around just to see her mother kiss the visitor – a tall man with dark hair and dark hair – on his cheek, and she knows she isn't supposed to _see _this, because him mother is married and this stranger doesn't seem like 'just a friend', but she can not really help it.

Because isn't she pretty, her mum? Probably the prettiest person in the world.

She wants to say it to her. But before she can, the door already closes, and her mother's gone – all beauty and happiness and perfection.

Later that night, she stands in front of the mirror again, looking at her own mess of hair and her dirty knees and the scratch just beneath her cheek bone. She stares at the old t-shirt she's wearing and the worn-out sneakers, beneath her shorts and finally she decides that this is going to change.

She takes a very long shower and washes herself very carefully, even behind her ears. She throws her dirty clothes in the corner. She brushes her teeth until they're perfectly clean again. And then she sneaks into her parents' bedroom and puts on one of her mum's dresses and a pair of black high heels. Nothing fits, and there's still nothing _exceptionally_ pretty about her, but when she stands in front of the mirror again and watches herself, she thinks it might be a small step forward.

She softly smiles and it's as if she's making a pact with herself. Some sort of promise. From this moment on she's going to be a good girl; a girl who doesn't get dirty anymore and won't play football with the boys in the neighborhood and who behaves like a real lady .

_Maybe one day she'll be just as pretty as her mum. _

**III.**

For her birthday on December 16th her grandmother takes her to see the Christmas production of The Nut Cracker and she's never seen something quite like it in her entire life. Because these girls, these ballerinas, the seem like they can do it _all_. They dance – no, they _fly _– over the stage, with their beautiful dresses and their beautiful smiles and they seem so perfect, so right in this place, it's like they're the definition of flawlessness.

She can feel her heart beat inside her chest throughout the entire performance and there's excitement running through her veins like never before. She's way too excited to sleep that night. She stays up in her room, standing front of the mirror, trying to copy the movements, trying to _be _a ballerina. She begs and begs and begs her grandmother to take her another time, because she thinks she could watch these girls dance forever, without ever getting bored.

Her grandma doesn't take her another time to see the ballet. She does, however, receive a brand new pair of ballet shoes for Christmas, and when she tries them on, they fit perfectly.

And maybe she kind of _does_ look a little pretty now.

**IV.**

She meets Parvati Patil on the train ride to Hogwarts and they are _best friends _immediately.

They both get sorted into Gryffindor and sit all their classes next to each other and spend hours chatting about school stuff and magic and other girls and how they _look _and what they're _wearing _and Lavender kind of feels like Parvati is the sister she never had. She's smart and funny and they like the exact same things and whenever they're around each other they just can't stop laughing.

And Hogwarts life turns out pretty well for them, you know.

But you see, even though she constantly giggles and laughs and manages to wrap the boys around her little finger very quickly, there will always be this hidden _insecurity _deep down inside of her that never really fades away.

You see, Parvati is so pretty, with her dark eyes and natural shining hair and beautiful smile.

She could never live up to that.

And so she tries a little harder, wears her mascara a little thicker, eats a little healthier, goes for a run a little more often and tries to act a little more _confident_, because all the pretty girls in the world seem confident, don't they?

She just has to try a little harder and all of this will work eventually.

**V.**

The first time she actually feels a little bit pretty is when she sees the look on Seamus' face when she descends down the stairs on the night of the Yule Ball.

No boy has ever looked at her like _that_.

She feels the heat rise to her cheeks at the way his eyes are completely and _only _focused on her. He nervously runs a hand through his hair and tugs at his dress robes and his gaze is going up and down her body and is kind of feels _amazing; _the fact that someone is looking at her like she's the exceptional girl in the room.

She sees him swallow when she stops in front of him and she quickly kisses him on his cheek to hide the blush on her own cheeks.

For one night she feels like all of this is ok.

**VI.**

The thing is, she _knows_ beauty, she _cares_ for beauty, she _thinks _beauty and she's absolutely sure that her opinion on the subject is the only one true to reality. She's read the magazines, watched the fashion models, learned every singe trick in the book and honestly, by the beginning of sixth year, she thinks she's got the art of it figured out completely.

But then she gets involved with Ron Weasley and – for crying out loud – _Hermione Granger_,andat some point it feels like trying to be pretty will never be _enough._

After all, she _does _notice the way her boyfriend looks at her and how much it differs from the way he looks at _Hermione Granger_. And it kind of hurts to know that no matter how good her fashion sense is or how flawless her skin or how beautiful her hair, in the end he will always think she's just a pretty girl, while Hermione Granger is his whole fucking world.

She's pretty, just not pretty enough.

It's never good enough.

She breaks up with Ron eventually and she knows that it's the smart choice, that she's better off without him, that she should move on. But still, she cries over him, night after night. Because, really, it's one thing if the boy you're in love with doesn't love you back, but it's even worse when the boy you're in love is actually in love with someone the exact _opposite_ of you.

She looks at her hair – blonde and perfect and shining, not a frizzy, brown mess of uncontrollable knots. She looks at her eyes – long, black eyelashes surrounding blue irises instead of boring brown ones. She stares at herself for the longest time in the world, and she does it all the time, so it shouldn't make a difference, but now that she's comparing herself to Hermione Granger, her vision on flawless beauty crumbles down more and more every second.

This is not how the world works, is it?

She presses her finger to the mirror and traces the soft lines of her cheekbones, counts the small freckles on her nose that she usually tries to hide, tries to wipe away the tears of the girl staring back at her.

It's all about insecurity, and now that her ultimate goal in life has failed so, _so _miserably, she feels it even more.

**VII.**

She doesn't really know what to believe in any more.

Because now suddenly it's war and she doesn't have time to worry about these kind of things, because the school is slightly falling apart and her old Potions professor is the worst Head Master Hogwarts has ever seen and all she can care about right now is learning defensive spells and making sure she stays in line and most of all, doesn't show_ any_ kind of insecurity, because she'll be punished for every little thing now.

And in the midst of it all, there's still that boy with messy black hair and bright eyes and a tendency for setting things on fire, especially her heart.

She kind of has a problem with not knowing how to behave around him nowadays.

She blushes whenever he accidentally touches her, but she can never _really _respond to his actions, too scared she might screw this up as well. She takes care of his injuries, whenever he stands up in class again, being _too _brave, but she rolls her eyes, when he looks up at her with _that _look in his eyes and tries to thank her.

She doesn't really admit it to anyone, not even to Parvati when she asks, but it's all part of being a little too insecure about _everything _and knowing that in times of war, you can't go around risking a friendship like hers and Seamus'.

So she keeps on dancing around it all, smiling back at him whenever he catches her gaze, but never getting close enough for him to actually reach her.

It's one day, though, when she's sitting alone on the ground in the Room of Requirement, staring at the picture of her parents, slightly wondering if this whole thing – _marriage, child, divorce – _will happen to her someday, that he catches her completely by surprise. So out of the blue that she's not able to avoid him.

"You ok?"

She looks up and nods. He drops down next to her and stares at the picture as well. He doesn't say a thing and she _loves _him for it (even though she won't admit it yet), because she knows that he sometimes wonders about these kind of things as well.

"Your mum's really pretty," he says eventually and she bites her lip, her smile a little forced, because _of course _that's the first thing that he notices. Of course. And on top of that, he always says _exactly_ what's on her mind.

"Yeah," she mutters, her voice barely audible. "Yeah, she is."

They're silent for a second, and then Seamus whispers: "Almost as pretty as you are." And she's not sure she heard it correctly, because it didn't seem like he intended to say it, but he still did and there's a feeling inside of her that she has never felt before. She looks up at him, and here she is, sitting on a dirty floor, with tired eyes and a broken smile and this boy, this young _man_, is telling her that she's more beautiful than her own mum.

She lays her head on his shoulder and cries.

She doesn't really know what to believe in any more.

**VIII.**

When she opens her eyes, after all those uncertain weeks in the hospital, and looks at herself for the first time, there are scars all over her body. Her entire skin is marked with The Battle of Hogwarts and she's never felt so horrible in her entire life.

But you know, her parents are there, right next to her in the hospital, and all her mother does is wrap her arms around her daughter, holding her so, _so _close to her that it almost feels like they're becoming one person. And Parvati keeps on squeezing her hand so hard, as if she doesn't believe that she's finally awake. And Seamus… Standing there, at the end of the bed, furiously brushing his sleeve against his eyes to keep himself from crying, looking at her like she's his whole fucking world.

And for one second it flashes through er mind that all these people are here because of _her, _and that they probably don't care that she looks like a monster now.

She inhales, tasting the fresh air for the first time in weeks.

And then she exhales, trying to blow all of the pain, all the long held insecurity, straight out of longs, hoping that she can kind of believe what they people are telling her.

**IX.**

Eventually she sort of discovers the real thing about beauty.

It's beauty, when the sun is shining right above her and she's dancing across a landing stage and Seamus Finnegan kisses her like it's all he's ever cared for. It's beauty when Parvati squeals when she sees her, and grabs her hand, dragging her all the way down to the deserted beach, and they just lie there in the sand, looking at the sky, just like the old days. It's beauty when she runs around in the rain like a little kid and her fiancé is laughing at her, right behind her back, but she doesn't really care. It's beauty when she visits her grandmother and spends every evening of the Christmas holidays watching the Nut Cracker ballet. It's beauty when she walks down the aisle, and the whole crowd falls silent, even though she's only wearing a simple white dress and her belly is three months pregnant. It's beauty when she watches the tears in her mothers eyes, when she finally admits how she's been feeling all these years, and her mother just grabs her hand and doesn't let go for the entire evening. It's beauty when she finally holds her baby son Logan in her arms, felling like this is most accurate definition of beauty in the entire world.

**X.**

And you see, the real thing about beauty is kind of a little bit like this:

She's not exceptionally pretty.

But sometimes she feels like she is.

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**A/N: I really hoped you guys liked this. Please review and tell me what you think! Have a lovely day! – Lauren **


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